


LOVE'S KISS, SHRIEKING FAREWELLS

by SILKCUT



Series: ɪɴꜱᴄʀɪʙᴇᴅ ʙʏ ꜱɪʟᴋᴄᴜᴛ [14]
Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman, Mesopotamian Mythology, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Inscribed by SILKCUT, Twitter Solo Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:07:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29076849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SILKCUT/pseuds/SILKCUT
Summary: He can still remember the first time he'd touched an Isharitu who dwelt in a temple like this. He was twelve when one of his teachers deemed it the ripe for the young prince to partake in the fruits of womanly arts. The experience left him absolutely starving that he spent the better part of two decades hence just trying to stuff himself full again, in a way he knew was naught.
Relationships: Gilgamesh/Ishtar, Gilgamesh/Media, Gilgamesh/New Media
Series: ɪɴꜱᴄʀɪʙᴇᴅ ʙʏ ꜱɪʟᴋᴄᴜᴛ [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2132040





	LOVE'S KISS, SHRIEKING FAREWELLS

* * *

**ﾒ**

Ｇｉｌｇａｍｅｓｈ

**ﾒ**

* * *

## ❝Eᴠᴇʀʏ 🅒🅗🅞🅘🅒🅔 ɪꜱ ᴍɪɴᴇ. Tʜᴇ ᴄᴀɴᴠᴀꜱ, ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴏʟᴏᴜʀ❞

##  **༻✧**

❝ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ɪs ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏᴜsᴇ   
ᴡʜᴏsᴇ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ sɪᴛ ɪɴ ᴅᴀʀᴋɴᴇss;   
ᴅᴜsᴛ ɪs ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ғᴏᴏᴅ   
ᴀɴᴅ ᴄʟᴀʏ ɪs ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ᴍᴇᴀᴛ. ❞

He was there, like in many others before, when the last of Ishtar's temples had been torn down. 

Tiny million craters over the stretch of unforgiving time had already eaten through the structure, whereas mold and other infestation spread underneath what used to be its unshakable foundation. 

It wasn't just places of worship exclusive to her that he watched get decimated, but it's nonetheless something he often looked forward to. 

He can still remember the first time he'd touched an Isharitu who dwelt in a temple like this. He was twelve when one of his teachers deemed it the ripe for the young prince to partake in the fruits of womanly arts. The experience left him absolutely starving that he spent the better part of two decades hence just trying to stuff himself full again, in a way he knew was naught.

The charcoal crumbles on his fingertips just as he's finished sketching a curve in the temple's lower half. He picks up another piece, forefinger rubbing on the tip, before he pressed it on the canvas again.

Humidity clings deliciously to his pores from where he sits cross-legged by a nearby dune. His crisp white polo shirt has lost some of the sheen, yet its contrast against his brown skin still makes it seem like it might as well be glowing.

"You alright, Mr. Gilgamesh?" 

He hardly glances at the other man; this burly American in his knock-off Indiana Jones attire, one hand clutching his binoculars as the other wipes the sweat across his thinning hairline. His name was something like Joshua or Jeremiah, something Hebrew.

"I'm halfway there," Gilgamesh answers without breaking concentration and perspective on the temple fifty yards away.

"Well, sir, you might want to scoot back. You're right on the path for the bulldozers."

He hears the vehicles from a distance but only shrugs his shoulders. Afterwards, he remarks, "Isn't the excavation still ongoing? I thought Archie's team has three more days to collect data?"

The man tugs and fixes his neckerchief--a nervous habit of his--as he answers Gilgamesh. "That's what I thought too. Apparently, higher-ups paid them generously so they can pack up later tonight. Thought you would have been informed about it, but I guess Archibald's too much of a chicken shit for that. Now I got to be the bearer of bad news."

A humorless curve of his lips that passes for a smile appears as he inquires next, "When's the demolition scheduled?"

"About eight in the evening, sir." 

"That's a little unconventional, isn't it?" Gilgamesh glances briefly at the sky where the sun was still at its peak, "Why so late?"

The American shakes his head. "'m'fraid it's just how they want it done."

"It all sounds so absurd, to do something like that in the cloak of darkness. But I suppose atmospheric too. Maybe your bosses have a bit of a dramatic flair."

"Maybe, sir."

He could tell that Joshua/Jeremiah was looking at the canvas now. A pregnant silence passed on for a while before the man spoke again, "It looks a little haunted. No disrespect, it's just that--well, I'm accustomed to art that's prettier than this."

Gilgamesh knew what he meant. It was said that art is for the elitists, for surely only the highly educated and affluent can appreciate something so beautiful and nuanced. And yet he finds that more hope than truth. 

Art belongs to no one. It needs to be shared as often as possible to anyone who can glimpse and admire it for a moment. 

The lines he had drawn using charcoal were far more vivid and striking than any other color he could use. Perhaps he'd keep it this way. Anything of Ishtar's deserved only this much of his reverence.

"It is supposed to be 'a little haunted'," he finally looks at his companion, "Destruction isn't often pretty either, is it?"

He shifts his gaze around the desert they're standing on before it lands back on the temple. "And my desire has always been to capture final moments before it comes to us all. First to our once great civilizations, as it sweeps through their rubble like this, breaking them down until they become nothing more but songs scattered in the winds. You are the agent of this upcoming chaos yourself, you know."

A warmer smile spreads on his face as he nods at the machines behind them, "Acting on Destruction's behalf. I really should thank you."

Joshua/Jeremiah starts to look uncomfortable; Gilgamesh has that effect on people.

"Just--getting paid to do a job efficiently, Mr. Gilgamesh. That's all there is to it."

He hums and looks at the canvas with the expression of someone who can only really appreciate the past once it's buried or burned.

"Yes," he concurs as he etches another portion of dark strokes on the pad, "All there is to it is always death. The living sometimes forget that."

Especially gods.

Gods forget they can also die.

"I'll see you later then, sir? At the banquet?" Joshua/Jeremiah pats the rim of his hat to brush away the dust.

While not looking at the American anymore, he had to ask, "I'm sorry, what am I to call you again? I confess I forgot your name."

The man smiles due to the awkward pretense of friendlinesss but he answers, "It's Noah. Wasser. Noah Wasser."

Gilgamesh doesn't acknowledge him again, far too transfixed with his sketching. Noah stays on the spot for another moment or two before he takes his leave.

The banquet tonight starts an hour earlier before the demolition. That's good. In case he gets bored with the party, he could always come back here and watch as the last of Ishtar's remnants in this world get pulverized. 

## ➷

He doesn't even last an hour. The crowd simply didn't interest him as much as he hoped for. 

In this new world order--where he's allowed to rewrite his story--Gilgamesh was glad he can choose not to come from privilege. He may have kept the same name, but his background as a mortal man differed from what the gods had ordained long ago.

For one thing he struggled to earn his wealth. He was relatively a nobody for fifteen years until he sold his first set of paintings to the right gallery, with the right cluster of elitists. According to the official records of his new identity, he was orphaned in Baghdad and did demoralizing things to survive. He had no formal education to speak of, but his raw talent in landscape painting was noticed by a British ambassador one fateful afternoon (in a location undisclosed). The same man adopted him at sixteen and gave him all the tools so he could develop as an artist.

Gilgamesh liked this story a lot. Those in the art world ate it up with gusto, because some of them are a real sucker for troubled (attractive) artists. If the artist happens to be significantly marginalized and exotic too, then even better. 

Tonight he hangs back by the window overlooking the garden outside. The champagne in his hand was still his first, and it's getting lukewarm by the minute he doesn't sip from it.

After some time, his attention lands on a crowd of men and women who are discussing a portrait he made a while back. It was commissioned by a Spanish heiress and was later auctioned off after her untimely death. 

Gilgamesh enjoyed a level of anonymity even with his success, so he doubts any of these people could recognize him on first sight alone. It also helps that rumors about his age could never be confirmed. Lots of them estimated him around sixty years of age, given the seasoned caliber in which he paints and the subjects and themes he chose to portray.

Others who have come across him personally-- such as the women whom he invited to his bed--swore he was only in his thirties.

The appeal of this mystery only adds value to his works, so he never discouraged it.

In any case, he's painfully bored of this banquet. Falling buildings and haunted places are far better company than these leeches.

He downs his champagne in one gulp and saunters off.

The temperature in the room changes without warning the second he reaches the nearest exit. It makes him reconsider, naturally, because there is only one entity who could stir such a powerful urge inside him. It's almost comparable to his boyhood's first lust with an Isharitu, but this hunger was different. 

As soon as he turns back, he sees her approach. She's in a figure-fitting light blue dress. Its sparkling hues make the creaminess of her complexion stand out more. Nobody looked her way but everyone sensed she's here. The music blares with a faster tempo; women blushed in anticipation as their dates whisk them away in song and laughter; and Gilgamesh was just a young prince again lost in this moment of romance and fantasy.

"Hello, Mimi," Once they close the distance, a hand brushes against her smooth elbow as he leans for a kiss on the cheek.

"Gilgamesh," she greets back, just as warm, and purses her lips to kiss him lightly on his own cheek so that her lipstick won't leave a mark.

He pulls back to appraise her. She was not just another vision of beauty, for hers is a power unfettered to the corporeal and mundane. Media adapts to whatever the viewer wants to see, appeals to the senses and the imagination like no other god has before. She was essentially genderless, but she chose the form of a woman for the simple reason that all entertainment and innovation was inspired or radicalized by women and--as he later found out after Enkidu--everything eventually goes back to Mother Death.

"You were right about him," Media clasps both his hands and beams, "Hercules, I mean, and what would appeal to his valiant streak.❜

Gilgamesh couldn't even feign a surprise. He merely kneads his thumbs on the palms of her hands as he remarks, "Did you ever doubt it?"

"Of course not. You and him are essentially the same. It's why I've consulted you about it to begin with."

She keeps their hands entwined and leads him with the other couples. He supposed she wants him to indulge her with a dance, and who was he to deny? Over the course of their alliance, Media never made him feel small or subservient, unlike the gods who once deemed him First Hero--only to snatch away the only person he's ever loved, just to teach him a lesson.

A betrayal like that, with a grief so immense and permanent, should be paid in full. He will make every deity migrating to the Americas bend to the will of these new gods until the Old Way is as good as dead here.

As his arm slides around her, with the hand cupping her by the hip while the other squeezes her own, Gilgamesh keeps them close in an intimate rhythm even as the rest of the world is caught dancing a foxtrot. 

Media meets his gaze boldly. He's quick to notice the beauty mark under her left eye. This face she wore was a national sensation, plastered among tabloids and immortalized in its own gruesome way. Gilgamesh always appreciates paradoxes like that, as seen with the way one hand caresses the Dahlia flower pinned to the side of her curly dark hair

Maybe that's why she chose it, for she knew he has a soft spot for tragic young people cut down in their prime.

"What you need to know about half-gods and demi-gods and every other hybrid from species that should never have mated," he says, whispering the words like sweet nothings, "...is that we never choose to be born with our souls spliced between two worlds. It's like standing at the very precipice of unimaginable power but since we came from mortal wombs, we cannot ascend fully with the rest of our heavenly kin."

Gilgamesh ceases to speak so he could twirl Media once. She gasps as if she doesn't expect it, exaggerating the girlish glee in her laughter next as soon as he catches her back in his arms.

"The mortal folk, meanwhile, readily turns us away. It's humanity's incurable plague; this idea they all subscribe that the Other, the Different, the /Freak/ is an enemy."

Media listens with that same patient smile frozen in her lips. In many ways she was more a mother than a lover to him.

"On a storytelling perspective, Hercules and I may be the same," he adds, "And so are the many others scattered throughout different divisions of the Old Faith; the nephiilm, cambion, manticores."

Media's eyes seem to glimmer because of the chandeliers above, "I sense that you don't agree with the generalization, however."

Gilgamesh wondered about that. There was a time he did consider being the first story a privilege that should set him apart from every other hero-gods that came after with their own sagas and epics. He certainly thinks that he could outlast them for another century or so.

The last four millennia hadn't been kind to him, especially where history is concerned. A lot of the clay tablets unearthed regarding the stories of his kingdom were yet to be translated by this world's scholars, and many others still may never even see the light of day.

"I don't know if I only protest because I want to preserve the man I've been in another life," he admits as the two of them slow down until they're no longer hearing the music--only the echo of each other's self-sustaining beliefs. 

"But it doesn't matter who Gilgamesh used to be, isn't it? Because the life I have now, the one you helped me achieve, is a life I got to /choose/."

He steps back and puts a hand over his chest where the stout heart beats proud, "No more royal birthright that made me king by default. No more divine interferences to test me as a hero. It's just me with a paint brush, in control and shaping my own story."

Media claps her hands together. The face she wore was so cheerful that one could almost forget the bleak fate that befell its owner. "Wonderful! An inspiring speech befit of Humanity's First!"

Gilgamesh would have blushed. It wasn't his intention to make it seem like he was reciting some monologue in front of an audience, but he supposed she's the only one who could bring out his desire to be known and admired like this. 

"Enlighten me with the terms of the deal which you and Hercules agreed on," he says some time after. With arms linked, they stroll around the garden for a while before Gilgamesh inevitably goes to the crumbling temple in time of its demolition.

"It's like you told me; to promise him that in fifty years' time, young impressionable boys around the globe and for generations to come will always know his story by heart."

She laughs, "Mr. World and I always deliver."

## ➷

  
❝ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴀʀᴇ ᴄʟᴏᴛʜᴇᴅ ʟɪᴋᴇ ʙɪʀᴅs   
ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴡɪɴɢs ғᴏʀ ᴄᴏᴠᴇʀɪɴɢ,   
ᴛʜᴇʏ sᴇᴇ ɴᴏ ʟɪɢʜᴛ,   
ᴛʜᴇʏ sɪᴛ ɪɴ ᴅᴀʀᴋɴᴇss. ❞

Media finds him among the hippies a few decades after. She came to him through a kaleidoscopic drug haze; her feathered blonde hair being blown by the wind, the tanned skin and bleached white teeth so perfectly applied.

"I took a page from your book and got us another," she takes a hit from his pipe then sits at the very center a couch where a few of the free-loving folk have passed out.

"Her story is even more exciting than Hercules' from last time," she explains, "And it involves Hades too."

"I don't really give a damn," Gilgamesh slurs his words as he lies there on the floor on his stomach, covered with nothing but a tarp. "Romans, Greeks, fucking Germanic--everyone's desperate these days to stay relevant. And they should be, in this age of Christ." 

His acquaintances had written words on his torso using permanent marker. Some from months ago are already fading, while others are just brand new. Scribbled bullshit about peace and tolerance, even poems that ripped off Beatles songs. He felt like a vandalized church. It was groovy.

Media uses the heel of her foot to nudge him more awake.

"I think you'll love what I've done to her history. It's tailored to fit one of the oldest narratives in the world. And no, it's not another hero quest."

Gilgamesh narrows his eyes, "Do you mean 'love'? Because a story of love would be my first guess."

Ever so gracefully, Media sinks to the floor next to him and brushes her fingers through his unruly dreadlocks. And then she tells him two versions of one story.

By the end of it, he gets up abruptly to clothe himself. The rough material of his garments chafe the goosebumps on his skin, but it was the welcome jolt back to reality that he needed. He didn't say anything and maybe he doesn't have to. Media gauges his reaction with the same eerie quality of a radio or television's static whose channel he can't even turn off.

How could she dare bring this information to him, knowing about his soft spot? His position on that has never changed, and now it seems as if she wants him to take credit for the abhorrent deal she brokered all by herself.

"People want to believe in the power of love, Gilgamesh," she reasons out without exactly attempting to stop him from exiting if he ever wants to, "Especially one that's based from violence and pain. They wanted to believe that even the most hideous beast can be loved by a beautiful maiden, who would then open up his heart and ultimately save him."

She shrugs, looking more nonchalant and hollow than he had ever seen her before.

Gilgamesh stops inserting his belt through the loops long enough to shoot her a look.

"You got dozens of other stories like that already, and the pattern repeats itself every hundred years or so with another princess or common maid. Why even rewrite Kore's story to fit that template too? You shouldn't need hers anymore."

"Because it's a classic for a reason," she has the same patient tone he's beginning to loathe little by little, "And any enduring piece of pop culture should get repackaged for newer generations."

Gilgamesh breathes in and out of his nose, all while he tries to decide how to respond next. Did he want to lash out? Call it quits? He's allied himself with these American gods for one reason only. He had a goal. Out with the Old and in with the New.

Why risk impugning this beneficial relationship with Media just because he was offended about something that doesn't concern him?

What's one more raped girl among billions every day? Perhaps a story of How Love Saves, Even the Rapists™ is exactly what they need to comfort them when it becomes especially unbearable at night.

The torment must be showing on his features because in an instant, Media stands--wearing the face of what is supposedly this era's feminist icon--and frames his face with her hands.

"When you said you want to stand by us, you told me it's because you believe not only in the power of a good story but also in one that moves humanity forward without being held back by tradition and blinding superstitions."

He wants to say something, anything, but she goes on, "Yours is the first one to teach humanity that death is the final chapter, and trying to escape it, to outwit it, is what keeps most people from truly living."

Gilgamesh just allows Media to smoothen the creases of sorrow from his face some more.

"You accepted that you died. That was the past you buried. And so this man before me now is reborn. The Epic of yours taught in schools is simply the version you wanted them to know--the version that helps everyone sleep better at night. So what if there's a bit of embellishment? What's so wrong with the fairy tales we have now, updated to keep up with the fast-changing times?"

She's right. She's always right.

"And trust me, this was a worthy price the Greek maiden paid in order to start again--to have a new lease in life which, like you, she'll shape on her own."

## ➷

He tries to track her down but there's not much he could glean about Kore's new identity. Whatever deal she struck, no divine or supernatural creature could ever hope to find her--particularly her abusive former spouse. That meant she must have chosen to become fully mortal. He wouldn't hold her against that.

What's so great about being a god anyway? Even gods could die.

They die once no one prays at their altar anymore or if a more powerful religion absorbs the rituals and makes those their own. They die when their own worshippers grow old and die, with no progeny to pass on the legacy of faith to.

Or maybe some can still endure as long as their names are still taught as part of history. But these fallen deities are only scavengers, picking up after scraps like beggars on the street. They'd settle hooking in any closeted atheist who would look their way and see a glimpse of something out of this world. That was the only form of worship they could bargain on.

It took some time, but he's reached his goal in 2012. The Old gods of his pantheon are extinct, told only in scholarly papers and for the sake of archaeological posterity. He also went out of his way to ensure they don't uncover any more clay tablets. Let the past be bygones.

Save for a few surviving polytheistic religions, almost everyone in the world believes in One God. The rest in the inventions which the American gods continue to franchise. They influence people's choices on a daily basis, whether they're aware of it or not.

This is the power of Globalization. Of Media. And Technology.

With his greatest goal fulfilled, he fell out of touch with Media, and she's gracious enough to leave him alone for the time being. His works of art grew more scarce, so the market price for the last five he painted have gone up due to the rarity. An early retirement seems on the horizon for Gilgamesh. He didn't mind.

One late night in 2017, his aimlessness takes him to a night club in Suffragette City. He'd been driving for quite some time, mostly to visit favorite places and see how much time has passed. In just five days he was halfway exploring the Midwest. He had stayed in more motels and ate in a series of family-owned diners like some kind of professional vagabond.

And now he's here--in a city whose location only revealed itself after he acquired a more updated road map at a gas station.

He is already bone-tired, more or less seeking the comfort of a bed so he can forget about the blandness of this life now that he no longer needed to outlive the things he hated. 

But why not pass out on beer and women here tonight instead? At least he wouldn't have to be miserable alone.

Gilgamesh sits among the other bored patrons of this establishment and tries to enjoy his stale drink. The women on stage blurr together in swirls of color and lights. He has a hand on his chin, eyes drooping as the sluggishness persisted.

And then he sees her.

Disbelief turns him to stone at first as if he's lost the ability of comprehension. Gradually he regains the function of his mouth, but he says nothing at all. Didn't want to call attention to himself. And when she turns to his direction and crawls to his spot so that he gets a frontal view of her naked torso, with the nipples covered in offensive red tassels--

\--he almost bursts out laughing in hysteria. What little self-control and awareness he had left prevented him from lunging on the stage and choking her next, yet he sits there and imagines the scenario the entire time.

He must have been staring too intently because she zeroes in on him eventually.

"Want a lap dance, hotshot?"

She sounds /old/, but the sultriness of her movements disguise it well enough. Gilgamesh leans back on his chair and pulls out a five-dollar bill. In response--the woman who was once the powerful Ishtar--turns to the side to present her thigh, where a garter around her hip is already decorated with money.

He feels sick yet strangely excited. Rolling the bill like a stick of joint, he slips it into her garter. Ishtar then slithers off stage. It takes no time for her to maneuver herself into his lap.

Some time later during the act of grinding her ass against his crotch, it occurred to Gilgamesh just how long ago four millenia was. 

One moment he was a prince making love to an Ishiratu in a sacred dance that delved deeper than the contact of mere skin. And the next he's staring down at the non-existent erection in his pants while Ishtar herself ceases to be real. He could reach out for her and knew his fingers would just slip through her flesh. Worse than mortal, she became a ghost.

"Don't touch the dancers."

A guard nearby scolded Gilgamesh. He didn't even realize he had dipped his fingers against the curve of her spine. She goes absolutely still, like he pulled out the cord of her switch.

Still half-bent in a doggie position, Ishtar glances over her shoulder until they almost lock eyes. Her smile is cold, the tone miles away.

"That's gonna cost you extra."

He waves a twenty-dollar bill this time. Instead of taking it immediately, she stands upright and faces him. His eyes trace the beads of perspiration on her chest, mixing with the scented oil and glitter on her skin.

"Looks like someone likes me."

Without another word, she takes his hand and leads him towards one of the booths. Somehow he ends up paying for a private dance.

Only it wasn't an ordinary dance. She's able to drain some of the life force out of him by the end of it. This ritual is no doubt one of the reasons she still survives. When he stumbles out of the club fifteen minutes later, Ishtar probably expects him to crawl into a ditch somewhere and die.

Maybe if he was just another human, he might have had.

Instead he goes back to his car and sits there to gather back the strength taken from him. An hour passes before he could feel the nerves on his body again. But more importantly, he could feel other things too. 

Like anger. And vengeful joy. 

Gilgamesh looks across the nightclub from afar. The red and blue neon lights in shape of a woman twinkled and seemed to wink especially at him.

In hushed tone, he utters, "You knew."

His radio switches on. Sharp static fills the vehicle. Then he hears a jumbled series of different voices answering, "Yes. It took time. She was good at hiding. But nothing gets past us. You know this."

Gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles are white, he declares,"I'm going to destroy her. Like I did with the rest of her kin."

"No," the uneven voices counter, "You will make her a deal."

"And let her live for another hundred years? In the same country that's now my home? Fuck that!"

"You don't want to end her. If you really did, you wouldn't be debating with me about it instead."

Gilgamesh unclenches his fists. After a terse pause, he says, "What deal?"

And then he feels her arms from the backseat, wrapping around his shoulders, stroking the sore parts inside him.

"You're better at this than we are," it's that same patient and captivating voice regardless of the face she wore, "You told us exactly the kind of worship Easter and Vulcan desired. Set Technical Boy loose to snatch the Queen of Sheba, but only after she's tasted some amount of irrelevance first."

His expression darkens like it has never before.

"You may have loathed them, but boy did those Sumerian gods knew what they were doing when they made you."

Gilgamesh relaxes into her grasp. He feels calm, cruel and in control.

After a full minute of heavy silence passes, he speaks again, "I know what I have to do."

There were hardly any shops opened at this hour, yet he still managed to acquire what he needed from the closest convenience store, even if the materials themselves were cheap. Gilgamesh hopped onto the bed of his motel room and eagerly ripped open the packs of crayons and bond paper. He couldn't remember the last time he used pedestrian art supplies like these, but for now they would have to do.

For the next hour he just drew her, the woman she had become in this country--a whore of another name but with less prestige. Each body part of Ishtar required two papers to sketch, and he taped them together once all the pieces were done. Gilgamesh then removed the dollar store-bought frame from the wall and plastered his own painting in its stead. He stepped back to study his art.

The patchwork portrait of the fallen Ishtar might be flimsy at best, but he still had the talent, so it bled through each precise stroke he made and hence conveyed what could never be said in words. Gilgamesh was far from content though since the colors he applied ended up dull (children's crayons are just so unreliable). However, this was the first time in decades he's drawn anything that speaks to his heart again, and so the chopped up spread of Ishtar in her semi-naked form--fresh from his mind's memory of the encounter moments ago--also sparked a new purpose.

Who would have thought that the cruel goddess queen he had rejected would serve as his muse now, in this land where dreams were often manufactured? Gilgamesh laughed at the distressing thought and welcomed the bitterness at the back of his throat before he spat it, aiming for the delicate part between her thighs which he decorated with thorny yet withering roses. The spit dripped down the paper, lending the portrait more realism.

Afterwards he sat on the bed, with his spine pressed against the frame as if he wanted to mold skin against wood. Gilgamesh pulled out his favorite gold zippo lighter with the Lion Gate carved into it; a gift from Mr. World himself. He had no joint or cigar to light at the moment because he hasn't smoked since the eighties, but he kept clicking the zippo open anyway, as he imagined the flame scorching through Ishtar whilst she danced her ill-fated dance that used to lay waste to cities back in her prime.

She was love epitomized, alright, one who stands alone at the wake of Destruction, (whom she adored most, of all her lovers, he believed).

With a resounding click, he shut the zippo closed. He has to carefully make plans, and the road--inevitably--starts with Destruction.

## ➷

  
❝ ɪ ᴇɴᴛᴇʀᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏᴜsᴇ ᴏғ ᴅᴜsᴛ   
ᴀɴᴅ ɪ sᴀᴡ ᴛʜᴇ ᴋɪɴɢs ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇᴀʀᴛʜ,   
ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ᴄʀᴏᴡɴs ᴘᴜᴛ ᴀᴡᴀʏ ғᴏʀᴇᴠᴇʀ. ❞

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**[@ALONEHEMUSTRIDE](https://twitter.com/alonehemustride) **

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